Annual Meeting

Call for Proposals for the 129th Annual Meeting of the AHA

The 129th annual meeting of the American Historical Association will be held on January 2–5, 2015, in New York City. The Program Committee welcomes proposals from all members of the Association, whatever their institutional affiliation or status, as well as from affiliated societies, historians working outside the United States, and scholars in related disciplines. The theme for the meeting, described in greater detail on the following pages, is "History and the Other Disciplines." While seeking proposals for sessions that explore facets of this broad theme, we also welcome submissions on the histories of all places and periods, on many different topics, on the uses of varied sources and methods, and on theory and the uses of history itself. We also invite members to employ and analyze diverse strategies for representing the past, including fiction, poetry, film, music, and art. The AHA is a capacious organization, unique among learned societies in its devotion to the full range of historical scholarship and practice. We hope that our program will reflect this strength, and to this end, we will seriously consider any proposal that advances the study, teaching, and public presentation of history.

The 2015 annual meeting will also continue the discussions, launched at the 2012 meeting in Chicago, of the ways that historical practice is changing as a result of the ongoing digital revolution. We thus invite proposals on what it means to practice history in this digital age, and what new technologies imply for how we do research, how we present our findings, and how we interact with a variety of current and potential audiences. We welcome proposals that focus not only on cutting-edge "digital history," but also on the broad implications of digital technologies for all historical practitioners.

We invite proposals for sessions in four different formats: formal sessions (paper presentations plus comment), practicums, roundtable discussions, and thematic workshops. Individuals or small groups may also propose the presentation of posters as part of a poster session, to be held on Saturday afternoon, in which historians will share their research through visual materials. Finally, members are encouraged to propose experimental sessions (see Debbie Ann Doyle's article) using creative forms of presentation not covered by these standard session types. Please consider choosing a session format that will most effectively achieve your intellectual goals, and will best foster lively interaction among presenters and between presenters and the audience. We also offer 90-minute sessions as well as the usual two-hour slots. To assure substantial time for interaction between speakers and audience, all panels, regardless of format, are limited to a maximum of five participants serving as speakers or commentators; 90-minute sessions should have fewer speakers.

Please consult the "Annual Meeting Guidelines" when preparing your proposal. Note that the Association encourages the representation of the full diversity of its membership in the annual meeting. Successful sessions will reflect, to the extent possible, institutional and career stage diversity as well as gender and ethnic diversity. Proposals for panels that do not include such diversity may need to be revised and resubmitted. Please note also that proposals for individual presentations can be submitted only as posters; single paper proposals will not be considered for any other type of session (see guideline 4.2.E.).

Proposals must be submitted electronically. Full instructions for doing so can be found at "Instructions for Submitting Proposals." With the exception of foreign scholars and scholars from other disciplines, all persons appearing on the program must be members of the AHA. Proposals must be submitted in their completed form (that is, with full information concerning all participants and their presentations) by midnight, Pacific Standard Time, on February 15, 2014. Proposals cannot be submitted after the deadline has passed; the system will be closed to submissions and will not accept them.

Questions about the content of proposals should be directed to the Program Committee co-chairs Francesca Trivellato and Andrew Sartori. Questions about policies, modes of presentation, and the electronic submissions process should be directed to the AHA Staff.

—Jan E. Goldstein (Univ. of Chicago) is the president-elect of the AHA; she will be presiding over the 129th annual meeting. Francesca Trivellato (Yale Univ.) is the chair and Andrew S. Sartori (New York Univ.) is the co-chair of the 2015 Program Committee.